"Has Been Dishes" Get Major Facelift & Landfill Reprieve In The Creative Hands Of Two Enterprising Designers

My dishes have seen better days, but honestly...it's hard to imagine them taking on such a cool new supermodel look like the ones depicted below.

I've never seen anything like THIS at my local retail shop or thiftstore and designer Sarah Cihat is counting on it.

She transforms mismatched dishes from outdated and "blah" into imaginative and "WOW!!" by painting over old plate canvases with bold new designs, reglazing and then refiring them.

Describing her Rehabilitated Dishware collection as "an exercise in sustainability that reincarnates existing products," she transforms old or cast away dishware into resurfaced, redesigned art that is bound together with cohesive themes.

Her website elaborates, "Interesting designs and modern colors enliven the dish, extending its life cycle past the thrift store or overstock pile. Each piece represents a rejection of more brand new products filling shelves and storage closets. Rehabilitated Dishware is a subtle statement of the importance of recycling and the renewed value of unwanted things."

What she initially began as a thesis project for Parson's School of Design has now blossomed into a full time endeavor at her Brooklyn, New York studio.

Prices aren't for the faint of heart -- a dainty ramekin can cost $34 and a large dinner plate $59 -- but the girl's gotta pay off her student loans!

Ms. Cihat doesn't have a corner on the market, however. She has fierce competiton in the form of Esther Derkx's line of slightly more refined and artistically tweaked china.

The Netherlands based artist and designer has enjoyed a more established career applying her graphic art skills to dishware than her aforementioned counterpart.

Derkx screenprints quirky retro photos of curvy flirtatous females and assorted other athletic counterparts onto vintage crockery, embuing them with a pinkie-in-the-air yet rebellious edge.

Different strokes for different folks, though. I appreciate each ladies' creations for different reasons and seasons.

I think I feel a visit to the Goodwill coming on....